With every purchase, your clients parting with hard-earned money. Any inconvenience can prove to be a hurdle to successful sales. Having the right payment platform can ensure you’re delivering payment experiences that match your customers’ expectations in terms of safety, speed, and more. CardConnect’s CardPointe platform is one such option, offering a wide range of solutions catering to the needs of various kinds of users.
However, just adding the platform to your processes is not enough. To ensure smoother operations and improved customer experiences, more businesses are investing towards having systems talk to each other via ERP Integration.
Integrating Cardpointe and P21 ERP: What It Means
In simple terms, Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP integration gets key business systems across your tech stack talking to each other. It’s possible through a few methods and opens up your business to more transparent processes, and smoother workflows, while empowering teams and platforms to better cater to your customers: old and new.
You can integrate your Epicor Prophet 21 (P21) ERP with your Customer Relation Management (CRM), Product Information Management (PIM) tools your eCommerce platform, EDI, and more. The “and more” certainly includes your payments gateway as well—in this case, CardPointe.
Recommended read: The Complete Guide to ERP Integration
How To Integrate CardPointe and P21
Point-to-Point Integration
This method creates a direct one-to-one connection between CardPointe and your ERP using APIs or Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs) without any middleware layer. The integration is specific to just these two systems.
Pros:
- Direct connection can offer fast data transfer
- Lower complexity for single-purpose integrations
- No middleware costs or dependencies
Cons:
- Not scalable when you need to add additional systems or applications
- Creates decentralized integration architecture that’s harder to manage
- Each new integration requires separate development effort
Ideal For: Small businesses with simple needs who only require CardPointe-to-ERP connectivity and don’t anticipate scaling businesses or integrating additional systems in the near future.
Custom API Integration
Custom API integration allows you to tailor the integration exactly to your needs. You build a direct connection between CardPointe’s API and your ERP using custom code. CardPointe’s developer-friendly REST APIs enable you to integrate payment acceptance into virtually any proprietary application or third-party business system, such as Oracle and SAP.
Pros:
- Complete control over integration functionality and customization
- Once everything is set up, payments flow smoothly, and the system works exactly how you want
- Can be tailored to unique business workflows and requirements
Cons:
- Expensive and time-consuming, requiring skilled developers to build and maintain it, making it a resource-heavy option
- Ongoing maintenance and updates require continued technical resources
Ideal For: Businesses with complex, unique requirements and available technical resources who need deep customization and complete control over their payment integration. Best suited for larger enterprises with in-house development teams.
Integration Platform/Middleware
An integration platform offers the most scalable and flexible option. It offers pre-built connectors, but also allows for custom API development when needed. ERP Integration Middleware uses third-party products to sync your ERP with your key business applications, acting as a bridge between the ERP and the respective application enabling the flow of information between otherwise isolated tools. Examples include DCKAP Integrator, Dell Boomi, and MuleSoft.
Pros:
- You don’t need an in-house technical team as the iPaaS provider handles the entire integration process for you
- Cost-effective, easy to scale, and requires no maintenance from your side
- Provides both pre-built connectors and custom options for flexibility
Cons:
- Ongoing subscription costs that can add up over time
- Dependency on third-party provider for support and updates
Ideal For: Organizations looking for a balance between speed, flexibility, and affordability, especially those needing scalability without the hassle of managing integration themselves. Perfect for mid-sized to large distributors and manufacturers.
| 💡 Pro-tip: Opt for an ERP-first approach to your integration. I.e., treat your ERP system as the central source of truth and connecting all other business applications (CRM, eCommerce, payment gateways, PIM, EDI) to flow data into and out of the ERP, rather than creating isolated point-to-point connections between individual systems. |
Why Integrate CardPointe and P21 ERP?
As mentioned previously, the payment experience plays an important role in a customer’s experience shopping with you. Yet, that customer experience truly starts way before they have even thought to purchase your product: in the way the merchant runs their business: a lot which takes place via the ERP.
Syncing the two systems can help bridge any gaps in time or processes between the business and its payment gateway. The result leads to several advantages including:
Cut the manual work
Integration helps eliminate manual effort as well as the time, effort, and energy that comes with it. Without integration, companies would require to manually update payment details and information in multiple systems. This isn’t just an expensive use of the resource but opens the possibility of errors that may prove to be costly. Integrating with the ERP allows real-time updates via automated synchronization.
Real-time insights
With the ERP and payments integrated, decision-makers have access to accurate information free of missed or hidden data, especially with regard to cash flow. This accuracy can pave the way for strategies that best leverage the strengths of the organization based on its financial health, and likewise, foresee and mitigate hurdles that it may indicate.
Improved payments tracking
With the customer details and payment information synced, teams have more efficient access to information needed to track payments with their respective purchases. Keeping tabs on pending and overdue payments also becomes more efficient with an integrated setup.
Offer competitive shopping experiences
An integrated system can ensure that your business offers a seamless and timely experience to shoppers. With the influence of improved B2C shopping experiences from eCommerce giants and service providers, more buyers are intuitively expecting similarly smooth experiences even from B2B portals.
The DCKAP Advantage
DCKAP Integrator is designed for specifically for distributors to simplify their business processes via an easy-to-use low-code tool that takes an ERP-first approach to integration. Over 100 distributors are enjoying smoother workflows, improved decision-making backed by accurate data, and the perks of offering improved customer experiences.
Customers choose DCKAP Integrator for the following reasons:
- Outstanding support and ERP expertise: With the support of a team of ERP experts (especially when it comes to P21), customers can confidently rely on the team for integrations to go live in weeks instead of months and for support any time they need it.
- Robust features: The tool is packed with features distributors need to manage their integrations, including advanced mapping and modifiers, an intuitive way to build workflows, and more.
- Flexibility and customization: Users can change integrations with just a few clicks, connect their own APIs, and make updates much faster than custom-built solutions thanks to the platform-based architecture.
- Complete visibility and control: Comprehensive monitoring, custom email alerts, detailed logging, and reporting give both technical and non-technical users the ability to track and troubleshoot integrations independently.
- Real-time business impact: DCKAP Integrator enables real-time customer data and inventory synchronization, automates workflows, reduces errors, and allows businesses to scale rapidly while cutting IT costs.
- ERP-first integration approach: DCKAP Integrator ensures that all the integrated systems are connected to the ERP, placing it at the heart of your operations. This approach allows for easier scalability, and ensures your integrations adapt easily to any change in systems.
The product offers limitless integrations: with just the API, it can connect all the business applications you would want to track, acting as a single, real-time source of truth about your business.
Watch DCKAP Integrator in action and learn how it can help tackle your specific business challenges by getting your demo scheduled today.
FAQs
What is Epicor P21 ERP?
Epicor’s Prophet 21 (P21) software is a solution created for distributors to manage a wide variety of business processes from inventory and warehouse management and accounting to eCommerce and business intelligence. The software is built on 5 decades of industry experience.
The software has an active and dedicated user base who constitute the Prophet 21 World Wide User Group.
What is CardPointe?
CardConnect is a platform offering a wide host of payment processing products from a virtual terminal, and plug-and-play terminal to a hosted payment page, and mobile application. The company is owned by Fiserv and is headquartered in Philadelphia, USA.
CardPointe—its payment gateway—offers businesses an easy means to integrate, process, and manage credit card payments through its merchants processing platform. It also offers integrated payment solutions for businesses seeking to create in-house SaaS solutions.
Why should I integrate my payment gateway with my ERP?
Integration eliminates manual data entry and the time, effort, and energy that comes with it. Without integration, companies would require manually updating payment details and information in multiple systems, which opens the possibility of costly errors. Integration ensures that payment data automatically syncs with your ERP, reducing errors, speeding up financial transactions and giving you a clear view of cash flow in real-time.
What integration method should I choose?
If you just need a basic connection and don’t require customization, native connectors are fine. If you want complete control and customization, custom APIs are the way to go but be ready for high costs and longer setup time. If you need flexibility, scalability, and ease of use, an integration platform middleware is the best choice.
What data gets synced between my payment gateway and ERP?
Customer details and payment information are synced, giving teams efficient access to information needed to track payments with their respective purchases. Transaction status, customer data, reconciliation data, and invoice information flow automatically between systems. Payment information is kept in the ERP, and when available to the CRM, a salesperson can be informed of payments that are overdue and assist with recovery.
Do I need technical expertise to use an integration platform to sync payment systems with my ERP?
With integration platforms, you don’t always need an in-house technical team as the tool provider handles the entire integration process for you. Customers using DCKAP Integrator also have the option of offloading the entire integration implementation as well as ongoing maintenance to its in-house team of experts.
What are the main benefits of integrating payments with my ERP?
Integration provides real-time insights giving decision-makers access to accurate information about cash flow, which can pave the way for strategies that best leverage the organization’s strengths based on its financial health. Integration saves time by eliminating manual data entry, reduces errors from manual processing, and improves cash flow visibility through real-time tracking. An integrated system ensures your business offers a seamless and timely experience to shoppers.
